Around 180 million Americans – more than half the population – are set to be affected by widespread heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain, which is a dangerous phenomenon where cooled rain droplets freeze instantly on surfaces.
“The snow and the ice will be very, very slow to melt and won’t be going away anytime soon, and that’s going to hinder any recovery efforts,” Allison Santorelli, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, told the BBC’s US media partner CBS News.
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said in a news conference on Sunday that the state was seeing more ice and less snow than was originally predicted.
“That is not good news for Kentucky,” he said. “What it means is that the roads are that much more dangerous and that the dangerous conditions are going to extend into next week.”
Weather experts have warned that one of the biggest dangers of the storm is ice, which has the potential to damage trees, down power lines and make roads unsafe.
More than 200 car crashes were reported in the state of Virginia as the storm moved into the state, according to local media.
Louisiana’s Department of Health confirmed on Sunday that the two men who died of hypothermia were in Caddo Parish, a region which contains the city of Shreveport.
The mayor of Austin, Texas, Kirk Watson, posted on social media on Sunday that “we have experienced the first fatality related to this winter storm. This fatality is exposure-related”.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani wrote in a post on X that at least five people in the city had died on Saturday but added their cause of death was yet to be determined. He said, however, “it is a reminder that every year New Yorkers succumb to the cold”.